The story of Biloela and its most famous family, who “just wanted a safe, happy life with their kids”, is again burning on Australia’s collective tongue.
“Their story is relatable to people,” Ms Dendle says. “They just wanted a safe, happy life with their kids and that’s what they had here. They went for walks every afternoon. They went to work and came home.
They attended the play groups. “And the fact that a few people said, ‘No, that’s not OK,’ that was relatable, too. I’m a harassed mother of five in a small country town ... we’re not lobbyists.” On Rainbow Street, the current tenant of the Murugappans’ old home would prefer if it wasn’t a de facto tourist attraction. She would also prefer her name not appear in print. “There are is a lot support [for the family],” she says. “There is also a lot of people on the fence or against them ... It’s hard. It’s really hard.”The question of returning the Murugappans to Biloela or Sri Lanka is controversial in their adopted community, contrary to the popular narrative. One operator in the town said it was risky for business to speak openly, let alone pick a side. Even the local Vinnies, where it has been reported Nades once volunteered, directed any questions about him to head office. Graeme Martin, who has lived in town for nearly 50 years, semi-regularly stirs passions with his send-them-back rhetoric on the Biloela Community Notice & Discussion Board page on Facebook. “My personal opinion is they should be sent back to where they came from and then apply in a legal way,” he says. “Come in legally and I’ve got no qualms.”Mr Martin, who says he has been threatened online by “local people, well known in town”, believes he is in a minority. Supporters of the family pick holes through his arguments. There is nothing illegal in seeking asylum, no matter the means, and Nades has not, as has been claimed, ever returned to Sri Lanka since fleeing to Australia by boat in 2012, they say. “I find it really fascinating because no one approaches me personally,” Ms Fredericks says. “What I can say is everyone who knows the family is behind them.Local Federal MP Ken O’Dowd is one of their key backers. He admits he is not across the years of complex legal arguments for and against their asylum claims and he is not alone.“It’s no good for the family, it’s no good for the Australian taxpayer, it’s no good for anyone and it’s got to be resolved,” he says. Mr O’Dowd, a Liberal National Party member who will not recontest his seat of Flynn at the next election, says the case is becoming an increasing frustration among his backbench colleagues, most of whom have so far kept their opinions in-house. “[Backbenchers] are concerned because everyone wears a bit of flak,” Mr O’Dowd says. “But the thing is it’s out of our hands as local MPs or people in the party room.Dominic Lorrimer “People in the electorate, people in Biloela, they want to see it resolved too. It’s put Biloela on the map under these terrible circumstances and they want to see it cleaned up.” Brenda Lipsys, who runs Blue Sky Heritage Eggs with her family about half an hour’s drive from town, remembers regular visits from the Murugappan family to collect plump retired laying hens for Sri Lankan curries.Ms Lipsys attends the vigils in Biloela’s Lions Park. So does her next door neighbour.“I’m proud to be from Biloela and I’m proud to be standing up for people like this family,” she says. “You just shouldn’t treat people like that, especially when they had fitted in so well. Nades had a job and they were lovely people. It’s not fair, it’s not right and I’ll do whatever I can to help.” Ms Dendle is free to speak her mind since leaving the bureaucracy of Queensland Health. Her treatment from middle management in distant regional centres during the first months of the Home to Bilo movement was “cruel” and frightened colleagues, she says. “Still to this day some Queensland Health employees in town get nervous going to rallies or talking about it,” she says. “I’ve also got friends who are staunch LNP supporters, but on a human level they will say to me what’s happened to [the family] is wrong. “They support it quietly because for some reason they’re not game enough to come out publicly and say they should come home. That’s happening at the highest levels, too.” The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights.
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